Grinding between a patient's upper and lower teeth can present a serious dental health problem. Often caused by stress, and usually occurring at night, grinding teeth result from tightly clenched jaw muscles, which force together the occlusal surfaces of the upper and lower teeth. In addition to the clenching action, the jaw muscles cause the upper and lower teeth to move relative to each other while they are being forced into contact, thus causing grinding. This grinding can cause serious damage to a person's teeth. In the short term, the constant grinding can wear enamel off tooth surfaces. Over a long period of time, the grinding can wear through the enamel and into the tooth pulp, causing more serious damage. Moreover, the clenched muscles that cause the grinding can, when chronic, lead to more serious conditions such as temporal mandibular joint (TMJ) disorder.
Presently, the only method for preventing teeth from grinding together is to prevent the occlusal surfaces of the teeth from contacting one another. This is usually accomplished by inserting a "bite guard" between the occlusal surfaces of the upper and lower teeth. Bite guards are also known as night guards, occlusal splints, bruxism splints, TMJ/TMD splints, and gnathological splints. Bite guards are usually custom-fitted devices made by taking a mold of the person's upper or lower teeth and manufacturing a device which closely conforms to, and fits over, the teeth. Since they are tight-fitting, bite guards stay in place by snapping onto the contours of the teeth.
Although they do a good job of addressing the problem of tooth grinding, presently available bite guards have an important limitation: they cannot be worn by persons who are wearing braces. Mostly, this is because the hardware associated with braces (brackets, bands and archwires) are cemented to the teeth, thus preventing the bite guard from conforming to, or attaching to, the contours of the teeth. Even if they could be used with braces, present bite guards are undesirable for use with braces because of their close fit, which would prevent the tooth movement the braces are designed to cause. Thus, persons wearing braces who are having problems with tooth grinding are left without recourse. For these reasons, there is a need in the art for a bite guard that is compatible with braces.